3 Sisters 7 Days

Wedding Planning Part I: Wedding planners see Black and White and are very structured, aka vultures.

Seriously. A vulture is a person or thing that preys.

That’s what I feel like right now.  The drama that goes along with wedding planning!

I don’t understand why companies feel the need to squeeze every single dime out of you because “it is your wedding.” I am finding that it ISN’T your wedding at all!

Yesterday, my sisters Jeanna, Juliann, and Francine went to see my reception venue and to sign all the paperwork and finalize the date of my wedding.  All is good. They also had the opportunity to discuss in detail some of the choices I will have for MY wedding, including (pardon the paraphrasing):

Okay, here are the colors of the linens you can choose from. If you don’t like these colors, then you can go to an assigned outside vendor and pay more out of pocket to get the “right” color for you. Oh, you don’t like the beer we provide? Well, we can provide the beer you want and charge you extra. No, we won’t refund you the open bar tab that you are already paying for.  So, I am paying for an open bar and for beer that no one will drink? I will bring in some drinkable beer and you will charge me for AND charge me for the beer you provide? Oh, okay. After all, it is MY wedding.

I just get so upset with companies taking advantage of my emotions.  We want choices! Yes, it easier to get a whole package deal and this place is affordable, near the beach, and accessible to Jeanna, who’s pregnant and handling my out-of-state wedding planning.  But it’s already over our budget, and I can’t imagine spending more money to make it better.  Why can’t I provide some necessities and they can give me a refund on some of the services I won’t use?

Stay tuned for more wedding planning woes.

Side Note: I do appreciate everything Jeanna is doing and I do trust her, I am just a little emotional right now.

Stephen Covey is most often associated with the idea of “putting the big rocks in first,” in reference to ordering life so that you are able to give adequate attention to what matters most. Whereas Covey’s story involves a successful business man, Rebecca Skeele's version features a college professor, who is tired of hearing all the excuses about incomplete assignments and complaints of ‘too much’ homework – a feeling I’m all too familiar with. She walks into her classroom one day with a large glass jar, a box of big rocks, a smaller box of pebbles, a bucket of sand, and a pitcher of water:

After explaining to the class that the day’s lesson will cover “perception,” the professor instructs the class to “please tell me when the jar is full,” as she begins to fill the glass jar to the top with large rocks. “Is the jar full?” she asks.

“Sure,” says someone in the back row, sounding a little bored at the obvious question.

The professor doesn’t respond as she picks up the box of pebbles and gingerly pours the contents into the jar, filling all the crevices around the big rocks with smaller pebbles. “Class, is the jar full now?” she asks.

“Well, OK, now the jar is full,” remarks the same back row student.

Still foregoing a response, the professor picks up the bucket of sand and slowly empties the contents into the jar. The sand easily fills all the spaces around the large rocks and small pebbles to the very top of the jar. “Now, class, is the jar full?

“No” comes a chorus of voices from the class. “No, the jar is not full.”

She smiles, and picks up the pitcher of water and carefully empties the liquid into the glass jar all the way to the top. “Class, is the jar full?“

“Yes!” her students enthusiastically respond.

Then the professor explains, “If you know what matters to you, what lights up your heart, what brings lasting joy and happiness, what is the next crucial step toward an important long range goal – do that first…and then there will time, energy, and space for everything else.” With that, she walks out of the room.

She’s right, of course. I just spent a week at a workshop that, in true “retreat” fashion, organized each day’s activities around extended communal meal times and daily spiritual practice, leaving yet more “pockets” of time to explore the the 110 acres we called “home.” In addition to participating in workshop activities – including visual arts practice, presentations and associated discussions, and course preparation – I managed to read, write, and spend time with my sons, who were with me. Moreover, I was well-rested, relaxed, and happy.

The transition back to “real life” has been excrutiating . It’s much easier to take time for delicious meals when you don’t also have to plan and prepare them, plus do the dishes. Likewise, it’s easy to get up, go for a run, followed by meditation practice and a shower before breakfast, when you don’t have to feed the dog and get the kids dressed and out the door. Less than 24 hours after leaving Lama, I’m already exhausted, facing a “to do” list that grows faster than I can cross items off. I’m afraid that sometimes you have to put the little rocks in first, which collectively edge out the big ones.

This past weekend was exhausting. I worked the whole holiday weekend – including two 12-hour days! My patience has been low, along with my energy. It has taken everything out of me to get in my runs with Sammy and a little bike riding (long work days aren’t going to deter me from my cross training).

Maz, on the other hand, had a three day weekend AND he gets home at 2:30 everyday! Then why am I doing everything? I just don’t know.

Conversation One:

Me: Can you go to Costco?

Maz: What do you need?

Me: Well, coffee for starters.

Maz: I think you can go a day without coffee.

Me: Yes, I can but I need you to actually run an errand – point blank. Just because I don’t have time to go to Costco today doesn’t mean I will have time tomorrow. Have some freaking confidence; I think you can do a Costco trip on your own.

Later in the day…Maz was showing off his confidence by giving me the details of his shopping trip. The last thing on my mind was how he couldn’t find the mushrooms, so he decided not to get them.

Conversation Two…following another long day for me, while Maz got home at 2:30:

Me: Maz,  when you get home early everyday, I really need you to clean up the kitchen and empty your lunch box. I don’t want to see a full lunchbox on that table again (for those of you who don’t already know, Maz takes a lunchbox the size of a carry-on suitcase with him to work everyday).

Maz: Okay, but today I fell asleep.

Me: It’s called a NAP, and I am glad one of us has time for it.

Me (while doing the dishes): Can you take the bathroom trash out & put it in the kitchen trash, then take the kitchen trash out because tomorrow is trash day?

Maz: No response.

Then I start to see movement…Bathroom trash is gone, kitchen trash is gone, BUT there’s no new bag in the kitchen trash can.

Conversation Three…about ONE hour later:

Maz: You know, I took the trash can to the curb; I didn’t just put the house trash in the can.

Me: What, do you want a gold star?

This is probably the best picture out of my/our entire stay in CA.  Maz has been to the beach before, but not like this past trip.  We actually spent a good amount of time at the La Jolla shores (my favorite place) and snorkeled.  Neither of us had ever done that before, but we had a good time.  I think the trickiest part is learning how to get in and out of the water with fins. Well, at least Maz was able to keep his fins on…

Yesterday was my day off for the week, and since I don’t have a traditional job, I don’t get two days off in a row, and never a whole weekend.

I started my day with a quick 30 minute run at 6:30am, then dropped a friend off at the airport; on the way home, I passed the Honda dealership, so I thought I would get an “express” oil change. One hour and a half later, I was out of the Honda dealership and on my way home. By the time I got there, it was just after 10am, so I sat at the computer to do some emailing while taking care of some calls I have been putting off.  Before I knew it, it 11am came and I needed to be across town in 30 minutes for a quick lunch with a good friend.  Okay, out of the house at 11:10 and then to lunch. Made it by 11:40, which is pretty much on time for me…After a nice and pleasant lunch I was headed to Costco and then to the store for last minute items for dinner (enchiladas).

I made it home from lunch and errands, and then I had to tackle the house – sweep and vacuume, then a deep cleaning in the bathroom , all while on the phone dealing with health insurance issues with the HR representative for REI.  No joke, yesterday was a day of multi-tasking to the tenth power.  Finally, the house was cleaned and I needed to shower.  By the time 3:30 rolled around, I was exhausted but clean.  I laid down for about 45 minutes without the luck of falling asleep and then Maz came home…

“Did you make the enchiladas?” were Maz’s homecoming words. I wanted to kill him! As I ran down my day, his comment was “Wow! you should have just gone to work.” My response? “I’m sorry but I don’t have 3 hours to clean a gun on my day off like you do.” He kind of went mute at that point.

On a lighter note, he did make a salad for dinner.  Too bad I couldn’t enjoy it because he insisted on adding a pepper/jalapeno – my mouth was burning by the second bite!

He ate my salad.

The last few months have been quite frustrating. I have not been completely satisfied with my work and I have been looking for new ways to bring in different streams of income without committing myself to one full time job. I have this weird phobia of walking into an office/cube everyday at the same time and only given two weeks of vacation a year.

As I have been reviewing my life and trying to come to terms with where I am right now, I have realized how lucky I really am. I get to spend time with my family when they visit; I get to snowboard for free during the week, and run in  beautiful weather at 10am on a Tuesday. I get to shop with no crowds, and I can usually enjoy coffee in a real mug and drink it in peace. Let’s not forget the great deals- since starting REI last year, I have grown my wardrobe immensely. There is no way I could have paid full price for some of the items I have accumulated, or the camping equipment I have gotten- I even got a free pair of cross country ski’s!

I do have  a trade off- I find myself working on the weekends, some nights, dealing with customers in a retail environment, and not having a great paycheck.  The very worse part of the whole gig is the time clock. I don’t do well with getting to a destination at a certain time and actually punching a clock; that whole process goes against everything I believe in.  But I do get over it once I am climbing a mountain mid week and not in the office…

Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to moving on from REI. I want to branch off and do something I absolutely love! The problem is that I don’t know what that is exactly.  I can continue the way I have been for the last few months- stressed beyond belief, in denial that I actually work in retail, pissed at the low pay check (I am getting paid less than when I was in college), tired from constantly looking for new gigs, and unsatisfied with my professional life. Or, I can embrace the position I am in; enjoy the free time I have, be grateful that I can pay our health insurance, be thankful that I get great deals for myself and family, take advantage of having lots of vacation time to go back home to CA and participate in marathons…

So, until I figure out what my next move is, I think I will just think positive and enjoy where I am right now.

I have a feeling, there will be good things to come.

I was fuming this morning! Be glad you weren’t around…

There are few end-of-term tasks more time-consuming and frustrating than assigning grades, especially when the class size hits triple digits. I woke up DURING SPRING BREAK to nearly 40 emails from students that reflected emotional states ranging from curious about “where” their grades were, to angry about the apparent “grade delay,” to frantic about the possible consequences of a grade that might be “too low.” The overall average was lower than I’d expected, but not unusually so. Still, in 12 years of university education, I NEVER once contacted a professor to ask when my grade would be posted, complain about the final grading process, or request a more advantageous curve.

I’d hoped to have grades computed and posted before leaving town for spring break, but with a class of nearly 300 predominantly freshman and sophomore students – an alarming number of whom possess marginal writing skills and/or needed to make-up exams – whose final grades, furthermore, depended on their Teaching Assistants’ own finals week schedules, it just didn’t happen. Half a week later, I was ready to post grades, but the online system for doing so was offline due to mandatory furlough-related campus closures during spring break. I posted an announcement to explain the situation and, within minutes, there were yet more email messages from my students – complaints,  yes, but also requests for final grade notification via email to include details of how the curve was generated.

I wanted to scream. I certainly scowled. I attempted to cheer myself up by “dressing up” Colorado style – jeans and a nicer than usual t-shirt.

In a perfect world, the one I actually used to inhabit, I wouldn’t worry overmuch about all of this student angst. Certainly, I care about my students’ psychological well-being, but my job has more to do with their education. Once upon a time, University of California professors like myself were encouraged to focus on just that…even if it meant that students received poor grades, and/or their evaluations of faculty declined. Not anymore. California’s current budget crisis combined with increased public interest in the “performance” of students who are now paying more than ever for their college education has generated a rationale for evaluating college and university faculty on the basis of  how well their students “like” them, rather than on their efforts to facilitate learning.

Although many students will, in time, appreciate their more challenging courses and instructors, few of them do so during finals week, when the weight of their academic futures are weighing upon them.

So…on Friday, in addition to feeling genuinely bad that there was literally nothing I could for my students, no way to transform “grade delay” into a (high) grade on their transcripts, yes, I worried about how their upset might affect my salary…

Thank God-Buddha-and all the Saints of teachers and other care-takers that my sister Terri returned from work determined to get in an afternoon run. Nothing like running (shoes) to cure the blues.

Sometimes I find myself wondering where I missed that fork in the rode that would have landed me on Elfin Forest Rd. in elite Rancho Santa Fe, California. Now, I’m beginning to think it may not be me at all. I think I just may have chosen the “road less traveled”; it just took a while for everyone else to catch up.

Take eating locally, for instance. Suddenly, it seems, everyone’s kitchen is sporting a box of vegetables and other farm products, thanks to a boom in CSA memberships. CSA or Community Supported Agriculture has become a popular and increasingly convenient way for ordinary consumers to buy and eat local, seasonal produce. Consumers purchase a share/membership/subscription and receive a box/bag/basket of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season. In addition to supporting local agriculture and eating “better,” both in terms of nutritional content and sustainability, share-holders/members/subscribers typically gain access to local farms via tours, opportunities to work, and/or ability simply to visit.

This is great. Really. I’ve been a mostly hard core advocate of “slow food” since before it was a movement. I whole-heartedly support CSA and all the nutritional and social benefits associated with it, and even belonged to the first CSA operation available in our community. I wasn’t trendy…no, just a really healthy “kook,” as far as friends and family were concerned.

Then there are the barefoot runners. Granted, I “fell” into this one because I’m one of the lucky few who naturally run “on their toes.” The growing popularity of forefoot, if not barefoot, running in the wake of Christopher McDougall’s best-selling  Born to Run simply makes me look like a pro at what others are struggling to learn how to do.

Former war correspondent turned barefoot running guru, McDougall argues that humans evolved for long-distance running - on bare or barely protected feet, which prompts a softer, forefoot form than contemporary running shoes permit. McDougall one of among many currently teaching runners how to run “naturally” – if not barefoot, then in Vibram Five Fingers or other minimalist shoes, including my own favorites: Nike Free and Newton. Their success has prompted me to consider modifying my teaching portfolio to include forefoot running clinics…

Or maybe “baby wearing” workshops would be more lucrative. Deborah Netburnrecently reported in the LA Times that moms are giving up new shoes in favor of filling their closets with baby carriers! Baby carriers support attachment parenting, a philosophy that promotes the psychological and physiological benefits of establishing and sustaining a close parent-child bond. I carried all four of my own children for the first three years of their lives for these benefits, in part, but also because it was simply easier and more convenient than the then-popular infant-seat/hand-carrier/stroller “transformer.” (While I can understand a stroller, I still do not “get” why anyone would willingly haul around a bulky plastic seat!).

Instead of kudos, I got stares…

Today, women are paying up to $120 each for carriers intended to suit their own and their child’s moment-to-moment attire and mood…and taking classes to learn how to wear their babies! Instruction typically covers how to select among the wide variety of predominantly cloth baby carriers currently on the market, how to adjust the carrier with baby on-board, and how to incorporate baby wearing into mom’s daily activities.

In contrast, I had to search for my first baby “sling,” via tiny ads in parenting magazines and the telephone – not for lack of Internet access, but rather due to the paucity of manufacturer URLs. It cost $40 and was designed by Ms. Sears – yes, the famed doctor’s wife. My choice consisted of roughly six different fabrics, and, when baby arrived, I just threw it over my shoulder, popped him in, and winged it from that point.

Again, it’s all good – but please…even baby-wearing in the modern age isn’t new.

That gives me an idea. My own mother – get this – simply carried all NINE of her children by shifting us from hip to hip throughout the day, adapting over the years to working with one hand at a time. She kept us close and became ambidexstrous. In this economy, I bet could make a fortune with “no prop” baby carrying!

Elfin Forest, here I come.

My day yesterday confirme the theory of the busier you are the more you get done (because you have to), opposed to having a completely free day to “catch up.”  Those free days usually end up being spent on the couch catching up on the latest “Real Housewives of ANY CITY,” and nothing gets done.

I started the day off at 5:30 am as usual, and got Maz out the door for work at 6am. Then I got myself ready for work and off I went to drop Sammy at the groomers.  I worked until a little after 1pm, then went to Sunflower Market to get stuff for dinner- a roast- yes, a roast…I think my second roast of all time.  Then I went back to get Sammy and was off to Starbucks to meet with a friend and some much needed caffeine.  I think I ended up at home around 3:15 pm and rushed to get the roast in the oven so I could get Sammy out for a quick walk because it was starting to snow.  Got the roast, potatoes, and carrots in the oven and out the door I went.  Sammy’s 45 minute walk turned out to be wet, I didn’t beat the snow! I’m just tired by the time we returned.  I still had to clean up the kitchen and do laundry.  I think I actually sat down at 6:30 pm.

Okay, I know I may sound like a baby her,e but seriously I did so much yesterday- for me anyway.

Today’s agenda: Run, lunch with friends, and finish cleaning the house.  Okay, now I sound like a baby.

This picture was taken of Maz learning how to snowboard. It was his second time using a board in almost FOUR years.  He actually didn’t do too bad; we just need to keep him out of the powder.  He’s 6′3″ and I have no idea how he got out of this mess or in it.   I guess I need to rephrase the term “weight on your back foot” because someone didn’t get it!

He’ll get it one day OR he’ll welcome back his long lost friends, the ski. 

Side-note: I don’t think I would be as pleasant as he looks- what a sport!